There are two prominent
unmanned aerial vehicle
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
(UAV) programs within the United States:
that of the military and that of the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA). The military's UAV program is overt, meaning that the public recognizes which government operates it and, therefore, it only operates where US troops are stationed. The CIA's program is covert and remains classified top secret even though it has been widely discussed in the public domain for years.
Missions performed by the CIA's UAV program do not always occur where US troops are stationed. For example, the strike conducted by the CIA,
killing Ayman al-Zawahiri was conducted just under a year after
U.S. Forces withdrew from Afghanistan.
The CIA's UAV program was commissioned as a result of the
11 September terrorist attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated Suicide attack, suicide List of terrorist incidents, terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, ...
and the increasing emphasis on operations for intelligence gathering in 2004.
See also
*
Insectothopter
The Insectothopter was a miniature unmanned aerial vehicle developed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency's research and development office in the 1970s. The Insectothopter was the size of a dragonfly, and was hand-painted to look li ...
References
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
UAV
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
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